Why did mmo's become so anti social and friendly?

[Asiaine]

Ever since the "cool kids" took over my hobby all that gets released are first person shooter and sports games. I wish gaming had never become so mainstream.

Good point! Costs to make games have gone up so much, that they only way to recover it is to make it mass appeal. This is different than games of old where it could easily be niche due to low production costs. However, consumer expectations are now to have games with amazing graphics (which is expensive). If we were all happy with 8-bit console games again, we would have more of the jRPG type games we loved.

So what do we do? Lower our expectations or perhaps look towards Indie games?

[Hiroradius]

Good point! Costs to make games have gone up so much, that they only way to recover it is to make it mass appeal. This is different than games of old where it could easily be niche due to low production costs. However, consumer expectations are now to have games with amazing graphics (which is expensive). If we were all happy with 8-bit console games again, we would have more of the jRPG type games we loved.

So what do we do? Lower our expectations or perhaps look towards Indie games?

For the record, I was always happy with the 8 bit and 16 bit.. The current level of RPG that come out are more focused on flashy graphics, the better they look usually the worse the story is and the less you are allowed to actually do in the game... Look at Final Fantasy 13.. it looks great, graphics are just wow.. fighting is so fast, and yet... the game is a straight path no exploration, the battle system requires almost no skill whatsoever (you just say fight and watch it, you can interupt it if something looks bad to say change a class or use an item, but otherwise your just sitting their watching.) The more they focus on graphics, the less they give us. I'd would be happy with 8 bit and 16 bit games again if they would give us more story, character development, exploration, and actually made fights where you needed to think and not watch.